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Dara Miller
Dr. Sirles
ENG 408
16 May 2013
Like much of his poetry, Philip Larkins Toads blurs the line between poetry
and prose. Although clearly poetic in form, minor discrepancies in the expected field,
mode, and tenor of discourse shift the poem to the edge of the registers spectrum. The
structure of the poem immediately looks poetic; words are arranged into quatrains that
form nine stanzas, and there appears to be a rhyme scheme. The topic is metaphoric, if
oddly so toads are generally not celebrated in poetry, but the comparison fills the
necessary role of figurative language. Larkin employs other poetic devices as well; he
hits on the popular sound device of alliteration as he describes the Lots of Lecturers,
lispers, / Losels, loblolly-men, [and] louts and how the something
sufficientlySquats and hunkers heavy as hard luck inside himself. He alludes to
Shakespeare, and makes use of considerable imagery in his descriptions of the people
who live on their wits.
Despite these characteristically poetic stylistic traits, something about Larkins
poem feels distinctly unpoetic. The poems opening image of a squatting toad is off-
putting, as is the casually violent frustration present in Cant I use my wit as a pitchfork
/ and drive the brute off? Similarly, while the poems diction remains in the public
language and employs mostly familiar words, the words lack much polysemy. With the
exception of the toad image itself, which brings to mind connotations of fairy tales and
the possibility for transformation as well as the physical ugliness of the image, and the
Miller 2
use of the word soils, which could mean dirties but also makes the reader think of
gardening and growth, the diction of the poem is fairly one-dimensional. Additionally,
the poem uses slang turn that is almost vulgar as the speaker wishes he could shout Stuff
your pension! and escape from the toads hold.
The cadence of the poem, although it appears fairly standard on first glance,
actually becomes one of the elements that pushes Toads to the edge of the poetry
register. Every other line ends in an eye rhyme, which appears to give the poem a kind of
symmetry. However, when read aloud, the effect is jarring no matter how much they
may look alike, work and pitchfork will never truly rhyme. The poem is close
enough to a rhyming pattern to make the reader anticipate it, but it lacks the actual
rhythm of the expected rhyme. It also lacks the cadence of much blank verse poetry,
keeping the poem from reaching the performative quality associated with the poetic mode
of discourse.
The poem also breaks away from the poetic tenor of discourse. Although one
could argue that the poem resembles a soliloquy and that the speaker is primarily
addressing himself, the questions in the opening stanza can also serve as an interaction
between the speaker and the reader, as the speaker invites the reader to consider his line
of reasoning. The interjections of Ah and But I know, all too well in the sixth stanza
again suggest this interaction, and the last stanza specifically seems to address an
assumed misunderstanding on the readers part with I dont say. The functional tenor of
the poem, while it does maintain the didactic quality associated with poetry, also subverts
that didacticism as the speaker recognizes the inevitability of separating the mundane
drudgery of work from ones goals in life.